BOOK REVIEW: RED LIGHTS by Georges Simenon

Red Lights by Georges Simenon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the third of Simenon's roman durs that I have read, and even though it is my least favorite so far I admire the lean prose and psychological complexity. But at times the story read like an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Steve and Nancy Hogan, Long Islanders who work in Manhattan, head out on Labor Day Weekend to pick up their kids at Camp Walla Walla in Maine. Even by the lax standards of the 1950's, when the novel takes place, Steve has a "drinking problem."  He sneaks extra drinks when his wife isn't looking, though she is hardly unaware of his habits, and once on the road he stops for quick shots at roadhouses along the way. He insists he drives better when he has had a few. At his first stop, he finds that Nancy has not waited for him in the car. She has left behind a note that she is taking the bus the rest of the way. Steve's drunkeness sidetracks his attempt to catch up with the bus. He stops at another bar to further "clear his head." He is drunkenly voluble with a silent man seated next to him at the bar. Although it stretches credulity is comes as no surprise that this man, whom Steve finds waiting in his car, is the armed-and-dangerous escapee from Sing Sing discussed on the televisions in the bar. Steve gives him a ride, blathering all the time about true manhood and the qualities he imagines he shares with the criminal.

The novel has attitudes towards alcoholism and sexual assault that will not sit well with contemporary readers, which is perhaps why the ambiguities at the end of the novel seem more unsatisfying that intriguing. But Simenon's style remains impeccable, and Steve's delusional drunken consciousness is presented in excruciating detail.


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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: TROPIC MOON, by Georges Simenon

Tropic Moon by Georges Simenon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sex, murder, privilege, racism, and all the nastiness of French Colonial rule in Gabon circa 1930. The only thing that could make this book more satisfying would be if it was only 130 pages long. Wait -- it is 130 boozy, feverish pages long. A perfect afternoon read.


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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: DIRTY SNOW by Georges Simenon

Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not often can you say of a novel's protagonist that he amounts to nothing more than a human shit stain. Frank Friedmaier is a nineteen-year-old, fledgling career criminal living in an unnamed city in Nazi occupied France. In the opening scene he commits his first murder, an act he feels that like losing his virginity he needs to get out of the way. Other crimes and one repulsive act of betrayal follow, but what ties the reader to the book is Frank's abhorrent life and the convincing picture of life under occupation Simenon paints. Frank's mother runs a brothel, a solid business paid for in cash and favors. While their neighbors suffer from near starvation and the lack of heat during the dead of winter, the Friedmaier's have coal, real coffee, and decent clothes. They are despised, and in Frank's case, feared. Frank misreads all this as a form of respect from people he finds beneath him. Although the story doesn't get this far, the Friedmaier's are the type of people who will be murdered by their neighbors after the war. But Frank is living the good life until there comes the inevitable knock on the door.

I have never read Simenon because the Maigret novels never appealed to me. I lumped them together, unfairly I am certain, with Agatha Christie's Poirot or any of the other long running, mid-twentieth-century detective series. Dirty Snow is one of Simenon's noir titles and among the darkest novels I have ever read. NYRB has issued several of these Simenon novels in classy paperback editions that look great and feel good in your hands as  you read. You may want to have a warm bath ready for after you finish.



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